Thursday, May 21, 2009

IS BI Recession Proof

Is BI/BW recession proof.

Towards the end of 2009 gartner published what was most important to 1,500 CEO.
Business Intelligence came #1.

Surprising fact: in 2005-2007 BI was #2 with CEO's. By August 2008 it becomes #5 priority for the CEO's. Now in Jan-Feb 2009 it is back to #1.
(source: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=636310)

What changed - the market and the crash in October 2008.

What is the writing on the wall.
BI is necessary when times are good and all the more so when times are very bad- like right now.

The critical success factor is to lower operational costs, get the fluff out of the way and Plan, plan and Plan - not with the same partners that have taken your plane for a nosedive but a BI Business Value Architect that represents your company and your business and audit for your BVA (Business Value attainment) at every step.
[1] We collectively nearly messed up BW/BI by not delivering high BVA (Business Value Attainment) and now the ownership is on BI professionals to deliver to BVA.

[2] This is possible a second change. All BI administrators, managers and leadership need to get some critical facts together - this is clearly identified by the CEO's

a. High in priority is 'Self Service Queries. This means query performance. In the same breadth Gartner also stated that SAP Query performance is not one of BW's greatest assets. So in order to improve query performance we have the BW Accelerator or the SmartCube from erada. Without query performance Self Service is but a figment of ones imagination. (Source: Gartners magic Quardrent for 2009)

b. High BVA: Business Value Attainment is going to be the critical shift in the 2009-12 period for BI Implementations.
[1] We will need to make a quantum leap from
'Fire, Ready, did we Aim' to
'plan your work and only then work your plan'.
[2] We must see a distinct shift away from conceptual 3rd party led projects to Business Owned BI projects.
[3] Planning will need to become the fundamental fulcrum to success.

c. Business focused Planning: the third leg of success is going to be business focused BI Strategy. not just the concept and the statements but the whole nine yards.
(a) Alignment of BI Strategy to direct Business Needs;
(b) Enterprise BI Cookbook (Standards, Processes, Principles, Org Structures and governance guidelines);
(c) Architecture Framework and its amalgamation into an enterprise architecture;
(d) Source System analysis along with reporting apps and business report needs;
(e) Identifying what reports will be delivered from what source;
(f) Assuring day-to-day reports are met first;
(g) Risk Registers;
(h) Actionable roadmap;
(i) Business accountability, ownership and participation.

Priority 1 should be to get a BI Strategy in place for without a plan no wind will be a good wind, even for the best captains.

Build your BI Methodology right and everything else should fall right into place.

Get a second doctor to review the recommendations if your doctor did not provide high BVA the last time around - second opinions cost very little and can benefit one heaven of a lot.

1 comment:

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